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WHO 

LIGHTLY 

SIPS 

AND OTHER POEMS 


JOHN T. TROTH 


CONTEMPORARY POETS 12 







WHO 

LIGHTLY 

SIPS 

AND OTHER POEMS 


JOHN T. TROTH 


DORRANCE 



COMPANY 


PHILADELPHIA 


COPYRIGHT 1924 
DCKRANCE & CO INC 


5 5 - >15 



\*l ^ 


4 - 



MANUFACTURED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 


Jfi -5 i924 

©Cl A801258 


Acknowledgment is made to the following 
periodicals and publishers for permission to 
reprint certain poems included in this volume: 
American Poetry Magazine, “Storm Wreck”, 
11 The Child Eternal ”, “ Madonna of the 
Alley”; Les Boulevards Publishing Co., “Nona 
Goble”; Contemporary Verse, “The Ultimate 
Tryst”, “Ballad of the Steve Girard”, 
“Stabbed by Beauty”, “The Room”, 
“Fear”; Everybody’s, “Taps”; The Friend, 
“Could This Thing Be”; Parnassus, “Little 
Rivers”; Public Ledger, “In Days of Yore.” 











CONTENTS 


Page 

Who Lightly Sips . 11 

Testament . 12 

Madison Square . 13 

Nona Goble . 15 

Little Rivers . 16 

Storm Wrack . 17 

March Winds . 18 

Could This Thing Be? . 20 

Love, Let Me Go . 21 

Ballad of the “Steve Girard” . 22 

Port Royal and Fort Anne . 25 

Behind the Scenes . 26 

Could You Have Seen . 28 

Transfigured . 29 

Ecce Signum . 30 

On What Far Hillside . 32 

Outward Bound . 33 

From Out These Times. 34 

Babette . 38 

Frankenstein . 39 

The Watcher . 40 

Mountains of Illusion . 41 

Chimney-Pots of Paris . 42 

The Child Eternal . 44 

Madonna of the Alley . 45 

Predestined . 47 

Running Off to Sea . 49 

Stabb’d by Beauty . 50 

Song of the Outbound . 51 

Ribbage . 53 

The Second-Hand Book Bin . 54 

































CONTENTS 


Advice to a lover . 

Prone . 

In Days of Yore . 

O Crowded Caravanserai . . 

Morituri Salutamus . 

Portrait . 

The Room . 

Renascent . 

Lame Theobald . 

Lay My Lute Upon the Fire 

Fear . 

If I Must Live With Men . 

Lippage . 

Taps . 

The Tramp . 

Rounded Hill-Tops . 

From the Battery . 

Monuments . 

The Ultimate Tryst . 

Song of the Wasters . 

Evergreen . 

The “Dyin’ ” Strain . 

Voices . 

Driftwood Flames . 

Slumber Song . 

Indian Summer . 


Page 
.. 55 
.. 57 
.. 58 
.. 59 
. . 60 
. . 61 
.. 62 
.. 63 
. . 64 
.. 66 
.. 67 
.. 68 
.. 69 
.. 71 
.. 72 
.. 73 
.. 74 
.. 76 
.. 77 
.. 78 
.. 79 
.. 80 
.. 82 
.. 84 
.. 85 
. .. 87 




























WHO 

LIGHTLY 

SIPS 

AND OTHER POEMS 


WHO 

LIGHTLY 

SIPS 


AAD OTHER POEMS 


WHO LIGHTLY SIPS . . . 

Who lightly sips, when soft upraise 
Love’s unreluctant lips, 

A mote, I swear, his wit outweighs, 
Who lightly sips! 

Yon bees bowse deep where honey drips, 
Then, humming maudlin lays, 

Reel off like overladen ships. 

Drain, then, Love’s cup; no louder praise 
Such homage can eclipse: 

He Beauty’s bounty ill repays 
Who lightly sips! 


11 


12 


WHO LIGHTLY SIPS 


TESTAMENT 

Some day pale hands will beckon from the West, 
Bidding me climb the Evening Star’s dim stairs; 
And lest that summons take me unawares, 

O Winds, and Earth, and Wav*es, hear my bequest: 
This fragile barque your ripples have caressed, 
This house that trembled at your softest airs, 
I leave to him of you who sweetest bears 
These bits of song to her I love the best. 

Tumble them, Waves, in music at her feet! 
Whisper them, Winds, beyond my groping 
powers! 

And burgeon, old brown Earth, in lyric flowers 
Caroling down her path! For these, in guise 
Of halting rhyme, but struggle to repeat 
The perfect poems that bless me from her eyes! 


AND OTHER POEMS 


13 


MADISON SQUARE 

Where mighty streams of traffic vast converge 
The Square lies, like an island hemm’d between 
Huge cliffs and rushing waters,—an unclean, 
Unlovely island, littered by the surge. 

Littered with human driftwood of the tide,— 
Flotsam and jetsam cast upon its shore; 

Faces too sad to dream the dreams of yore,— 
Desire-worn, passion-faded, anguish-eyed! 

And, sitting here, I watch them come and go: 
Some sink upon the benches in despair, 

Some seize abandoned papers, seeking there 
From habit the frustrations they foreknow. 

What hope remains for those who throng this 
spot? 

What healing balm their battered souls can 
purge? 

The city’s roar breathes o’er them like a dirge, 
And every sign avows them God-forgot! 

But suddenly, from yon sky-groping tower, 

A coverlet of Israfelian sound 
Floats down, like snow in pity of the ground,— 
The Chimes’ calm chanting of the quarter-hour. 

Four softly-vibrant tones caressing laid 

Down on these huddled forms of sodden care: 
Four perfect themes that thread the awe-hushed 
air 

And seem to call to each—“Be not afraid!” 


14 


WHO LIGHTLY SIPS 


Yet no dull eyes of those about me fill 
With hope,—no head lifts briefly to rejoice 
They do not even recognize His voice,— 
’Tis they forget, whom God remembers still! 

But oh, the pity of it! These whose hells 
My paltry sorrows fathom scarce at all, 
Depart unsolaced, and on me doth fall 
This blessed benediction of the bells! 


AND OTHER POEMS 


15 


NONA GOBLE 

Nona Goble, Nona Goble, 

Though its ages since we met, 

Nona Goble, Nona Goble, 

I can see you blushing yet! 

White below our climbing feet 
Lay the quays of quaint Grenoble, 
Where the Drac and Isere meet; 

And above us, Nona Goble, 

(Comme cette heure etait heureuse!) 
Whiter towered La Grande Chartreuse. 

Nona Goble, Nona Goble, 

Swear you’ve not forgot the day, 

Nona Goble! Nona Goble! 

But be careful what you say! 

For you’re false as false can be, 

And you never knew Grenoble,— 

But your name has haunted me 
Since I fished it from a gutter, 

Oddly signed to some old letter— 

“Nona Goble’’—Nona Goble! 

Comme cette heure etait heureuse! 
Gargon! Encore une Chartreuse! 


16 


WHO LIGHTLY SIPS 


LITTLE RIVERS 

I love the little rivers of the earth 

That loiter past the walls of little towns: 
They gather such a store of pungent mirth, 

And gossip indiscreetly ’neath the frowns 
Of staid, moss-vestured bridges. They have 
kiss’d 

The feet of children where their waters pass 
O’er gleaming fords; have held, in clinging tryst, 
The body sweet of many a rustic lass 
Who, shyly dipping where the great trout swims, 
Held the pool spellbound, while the current 
swirled 

Bewitched about her brown and lovely limbs! 

I leave proud streams that stride across the 
world 

To greater bards, and pipe a jocund strain 
Of little rivers, meandering o’er the plain. 


AND OTHER POEMS 


17 


STORM WRACK 

How should I heed some hinted storm 
Who guessed not that my gods were glass? 
Last night I thought me safe and warm,— 
Yet pallid in the dawn droops Gorm, 

And yon dry dust was Aldefras! 

Blow gently on our untried gods, 

Stern wind that winnows world from world! 
Lest when the weary watcher nods 
Great Gorm crash down to bruise our sods, 
Or Aldefras be earthward hurled. 

Now must I gather dust from dust, 

And dream how looked the erstwhile whole: 
Blend with parched clay the wine of trust,— 
Surmise and mold, with thrust on thrust, 

Till soars again my shattered soul! 


18 


WHO LIGHTLY SIPS 


MARCH WINDS 

O you boisterous winds of March, 

That come swaggering and swashbuckling down 
the hills and vales, 

Bragging, always bragging, 

And with your great windy oaths 
Claiming credit for the havoc Winter wrought 
before you,— 

How I love you! 

You come bellowing down the valleys, 

Booming over the prostrate wolds, 

And roaring through the protesting woodlands! 
You make a raging sally down to the lake, 
Bullying its blue waters into confusion! 

You clip leaves, branches, and even mighty limbs 
With your undissuadable, invisible sword, 
Sending them crashing down or madly scurrying 
Across the clean-swept open spaces 
As ruthlessly as any wanton boy 
Tries out his young lusty sword-arm 
Upon unoffending dandelion heads! 


Yet, for all your braggadocio, O turbulent winds 
of March, 

There is something brave and wholesome in your 
noisy greetings,— 

Your great buffeting claps on the back, 

And somehow, I love you! 


AND OTHER POEMS 19 

Roar through and through my winter-turbid 
frame! 

Sweep me clean,—swell out these listless lungs! 
Lift me bodily out of the memory of the old 
year’s defeats 

And set me down ’way off somewhere, anywhere! 

Let me start out again with no inheritance 
Save the consciousness of being myself, 

A living, hoping, pulsating human creature 
Roaming this wonderful earth; 

Hungry ever for winds, waves, and sunsets, 
Thirsty ever for comradeship and love! 


20 


WHO LIGHTLY SIPS 


COULD THIS THING BE 

The wide-eyed gravity some children wear, 

Has more of dignity than purple robes; 

Their unabashed, clear gaze has all the air 
Of superhuman knowledge, as it probes 
Our vaunted depths; that luminous regard 
Veils mighty secrets it were fain to tell,— 
Deep hints, that on the ruby threshold barr’d, 
Remain forever undivulgible! 

O could but one of these adventurers 

So lately poised mid-way of Heaven and earth, 
Master our speech before remembrance blurs 
And he forgets the truths he knew at birth: 
How hungrily we’d listen, could this thing be: 
And yet, it happened once,—near Galilee! 


AND OTHER POEMS 


21 


LOVE, LET ME GO . . . 

Love, let me go with thee, content 
Come blossom-time or snow; 

With thee as two streams confluent, 
Love, let me go. 

May thou and I so raptly flow, 
Naught save its mystic scent 
Our perfumed passing will bestow. 

But, when the world’s enravishment 
Shall call me, loud or low, 

And all thy golden coin is spent,— 
Love, let me go ! 


22 


WHO LIGHTLY SIPS 


BALLAD OF THE “STEVE GIRARD” 

Teered at by the sea-gulls an’ twitted by the 
tides, 

Full fathom-deep in Jersey sand my battered 
carcass hides; 

I had dreamed of swift adventure, and of waters 
wide an' free,— 

But the stiffest cruise I made was just from 
Reading to the sea! 

They laid me down in Reading-town,—I wasn’t 
extra fast; # . 

I started down the Schu’kill with nary a single 
mast,— ? 

With three gee-haws insteads o’ sails, an ribs 
that ached with coal, 

But I heard far surf-swept reaches pleadin’, 
pleadin’ with my soul! 

Each trip we docked in Philly I thought they’d 
surely buy 

Me spars, an’ sails, an’ all the gear that makes 
a ship feel spry; 

But the captain only damn’d the mules, an’ 
double-damn’d my bulk, 

So I’d amble back to Reading just a busted- 
hearted hulk! 

Just a busted-hearted hulk, with a tendency to 
sulk, 

And planks most awful tantalized with semi¬ 
weekly salt! 


AND OTHER POEMS 


23 


But I done m’ dashin’ duty, if I wasn’t any 
beauty,— 

Tho it riled me when they’d holler “Whoa” to 
fetch me to a halt! 

Well, for forty year I navigated that consarned 
canal 

Along with sech ennoblin’ types as Jerry, Maud, 
an’ Sal; 

Till one Spring we touched at Chester, where 
the Delaware swings wide,— 

There I heerd the sea a-coaxin’ me, an’ wallowed 
deep, an’ cried! 

I sobbed an’ shook until I snapped m’ hawser 
like a thread! 

To an ebbin’ tide an’ a settlin’ fog I tossed my 
ugly head! 

I thumbed m’ nose where Reading-town among 
the mountains lay, 

Went a-lopin’ down the river, past the Capes, 
and out the Bay! 

Toward the gallant, scented Indies I turned my 
old snub-nose, 

But the Gulf Stream says “Avast, you rube!” 
so north I sadly goes; 

Then, just abreast o’ Barnegat, a rough Nor’ 
easter lands 

Me with a narsty wallop high an’ dry on these 
here sands! 

Just a busted-hearted hulk, with a tendency to 
sulk, 

Because I’ve got to stand the jibes o’ this insultin’ 
sea! 


24 


WHO LIGHTLY SIPS 


And m’ planks are slowly bucklin’, but I often 
fall a-chucklin’— 

It took more ’n ol’ Cap Kelly to say “Whoa!” to 
Stephen G.! 


AND OTHER POEMS 


25 


PORT ROYAL AND FORT ANNE 
(1604-1924) 

Three careless centuries have shuffled o’er 
This earliest outpost of the westering Gaul: 
Two of red War, that saw the rise and fall 
Of fluctuant hopes the Lion or Lily wore, 

And one of healing Peace. Yet still they roar, 
These imperturbable, vast tides, through all 
Thy bays, L’Acadie,—and still wheeling, call 
Bright argent gulls ’round guns that speak no 
more! 

What have they wrought, the grim, capricious 
years? 

Flags then unborn and unimagined float 
O’er sleeping bastions and the grass-grown 
moat: 

That clamorous past in travelers’ ears alone 
Revives the Mic-Mac yell, the Exiles’ tears, 
Where brave De Monts still gazes north—in 
stone! 


26 


WHO LIGHTLY SIPS 


BEHIND THE SCENES 

For some, the avenue’s parade, 

Where mimic world, in smiles arrayed, 
Presents its afternoon charade 
In self-defense: 

Some crave the pleasant hint conveyed 
By marble gate or carved facade, 

And all the showy effort made 
To veil pretense. 

But I foreswear the smirking crowd 
Of shallow thought and accent loud,— 
The cold, self-conscious fronts of proud 
Palatial homes; 

For me, the fashion-disavowed 
Back street with nameless charm endowed 
That skirts their rear,—all overboughed 
Where green endomes. 

The shady, humble lane that knows 
A franker, truer life than flows 
Past those unreal, forbidding rows 
That front the world: 

Where gardens moss-grown walls enclose, 
And over wall full many a rose 
By blushing maids to honest beaux 
May yet be twirled! 

And children’s laughter, sweetly heard 
Its echo, from some unseen bird; 

The garden gate, the half-caught word 


AND OTHER POEMS 


27 


And downward glance: 

A rendezvous, a hope deferred,— 

A glimpse of Beauty, vaguely blurr’d,— 
So much half-seen, but more inferred, 
That spells Romance! 


28 


WHO LIGHTLY SIPS 


COULD YOU HAVE SEEN . . 

Between the dead moon and the dawn, 
The ghost of love stole through the gray 
Wan curtains of reluctant day,— 

I saw His pallid hands thereon; 

I watched His hurt, reproachful gaze 
Turn wearily from me to you, 

I marked His quiv’ring mouth, and knew 
Again the sweetness of His ways! 

And even then I was aware 

The power of our united breath 
Might call the Exile back from death,— 
Could you have seen Him, standing there! 


AND OTHER POEMS 


29 


TRANSFIGURED 

Watching her face across the talk-filled room 
I scarce could find it beautiful, at first: 

As though some perfect flower, denied perfume, 
With occult want left all my sense athirst. 
But, at the speaking of a name, her eyes 

Leapt into life, like drowsy woodland pools 
That fall asleep at dusk and in surprise 

Awake brimful of spendthrift Evening’s jewels; 
Then soft as mist-encumbered moons they glowed, 
While parted lips appeared to greet the ghost 
Of that last, best-remembered kiss bestov/ed: 

It seemed as though, above some noisy host, 
An ancient oriflamme were lifted high, 

Serene and proud against a leaden sky! 


30 


WHO LIGHTLY SIPS 


ECCE SIGNUM 

What if my dust, within the decent urn, 

Should find this fettering of the Flesh had been 
All vain! Should my defrauded spirit learn 
That priestly charlatans had fashion’d sin, 
Snaring in Fear’s inevitable gin 
These pallid bodies that with passion bum! 

If pitying Death should come, and whisper low 
That his implacable, vast surges swell 
To no shore of a Heaven bought with woe 
And no such sunless, loveless land as Hell,— 
What wonder if I curst my creed’s cold cell, 
Shutting me from delights I burned to know! 

Were it not better if my wasted hymns 
Had moved warm flesh to swift desire of me? 
And if these eyes, that vain devotion dims, 

Had welled with amorous idolatry 

Of her who first, at Cyprus, smote the sea 

With th* unbearable, blinding glory of her limbs! 

If my forever-venturing spirit bore 
The solace of ten thousand memories,— 

Bright souvenirs of all that I forswore 
Encargoed in ethereal argosies,— 

With phantoms of remembered ecstasies 
Might not I far more gladly put from shore? 

No, no! For see, in Pain’s long pilgrimage, 
Aflame with unassuageable desires, 

The Pilgrims of Passion pass! Their spent veins 
rage 


AND OTHER POEMS 


31 


With Her unquenchable, mad fires, 

Whose Goad ten thousand tortured hopes in¬ 
spires,— 

Whose Gift is Madness for an heritage! 

Wore ever Her wan servitors such face 
As they who sudden by that other sea 
Believed, and were in His reflected grace 
Transfigured, when by holy Galilee 
Christ purged their hearts of doubt’s infirmity 
And planted joy unfathom’d in its place? 

Behold the Sign! In Bethany’s mean room 
It shone upon th’ adoring face of her 
Who brake the box, anointing with perfume 
His head beforehand for the sepulcher! 

It blazed again when fear could not deter 
That belov’d disciple from the empty tomb! 

Behold the Sign! ’Twas in her wondering eyes 
To whom “Go, sin no more,” the Savior said: 
And when, today, the rich and poor arise 
Exalted from memorial Wine and Bread, 

Its light unveils each heart, swift-comforted,— 
Its radiance the humblest glorifies! 

O we of little faith, who groping whine 
For “certain proof”! Be certain all the eyes 
Of perfect joy are windows of some shrine, 
That to His love entrusts its destinies 
Whose mark is blazon’d down the centuries,— 
Who cries to us “Behold! Behold the Sign!” 


/ 


32 


WHO LIGHTLY SIPS 


ON WHAT FAR HILLSIDE . . . 

For all its haughty taciturnity 
Man’s truest friend remains the steadfast Tree, 
Bestowing Cradle, Home, and last, that Ship 
Wherein he ventures on eternity. 

On what far hillside,—faithful, silent, bold,— 
Waiting through sun and rain, through heat and 
cold, 

Stands that kind Tree predestined to embark 
My transient dust within its fragrant hold! 


AND OTHER POEMS 


33 


OUTWARD BOUND 

I did not recognize him when he said— 

“This river is thy life: in laughter down 
The mother-hill it fell, a rillet-clown; 

In youth, through meadows flower-carpeted, 

It dallied long, and casually sped 
The mill, with careless hand and boyish frown: 
And when of age, it bore from town to town 
Strange burdens for the living and the dead. 

But when, at last, the Ocean claims its own, 
And all thy ships go on, to havens far, 

T( J w . hat dim spirit-port, what beacon’d star, 
Shall wing th’ Invisible Argosy of Thee!” 

I turned to answer him, but was—alone! 

And close at hand I heard the waiting sea. 


34 


WHO LIGHTLY SIPS 


FROM OUT THESE TIMES . . . 

Long, long I lay,—my body tense with thought, 
Interminable thought that hurled me on 
Against vast gates of shimmering guesswork 
wrought; 

Straining to glimpse the Truth they ope upon,— 
Thirsting to know what waits to crown our 
crimes, 

What this sick earth may see when it has passed 
from out these times. 

Till, lost in that elusive labyrinth 
Of thought, at last I slept, and sleeping, seemed 
To stand upon the alabastine plinth 
Of some huge column, such as oft I dreamed 
Might shoulder high the massive portico 
Of that grand Olympian temple where the calm 
Gods come and go. 

Behind the column crouching low I saw 
Those hoary, wide-browed, beautiful Gods of old 
Ranged in their tribune of the ultimate Law; 
And one, of gloomily heroic mold, 

Fronting them bravely, a petitioner,— 

I knew him, and crept forth to hear what manner 
of plea it were. 

’Twas melancholy Charon, whose bleak barge 
Bears in weird silence to that nether-world 
Our faring souls from life’s back-beckoning marge: 
Grisly and gaunt he stood,—tall form enfurled 
In coarse, black sailor’s cloak; yet shone his face 
With radiance unwonted as he pled in that still 
place. 


AND OTHER POEMS 


35 


“Masters,” he cried, “I come to crave a boon, 
And pray you hear me! Since my mother Nyx 
Bore me in yon dim land that knows no moon, 
To ferry sleepers o’er the turbid Styx,— 

What myriad millions have I borne across 
Its reedy tide, impassive, recking not their gain 
or loss! 

“I felt contempt for those whom shame-faced 
Death 

Needs harry from the caves wherein they crept 
To cower and cringe before his icy breath! 
Whose very loved ones in white fear upleapt 
At sound of my inevitable oar, 

Leaving the coin and their dead alone on that 
dim shore. 

“Then dawned the Golden Age, when heroes bold 
Seized my lean hand, nor shrank before my eye,— 
And I was proud! But on the centuries rolled,— 
Again man cowered, once more he feared to die; 
The Age of Chivalry for a moment burned,— 
’Twas but false dawn,—man waked, then to his 
craven couch returned. 

“Ah, but of late, my Masters, have I seen 
On faces of that ever-swelling throng 
That crowds my shore, a Light that’s never been 
Thereon before! From out the West a Song 
Comes ringing, wafting rumors of great wars 
Men wage on Wrong, that cause me grip anew 
mine ebon oars! 

“They tell a new Round Table of new Chivalry; 
A nobler knighthood of whole nations, vowed 


36 


WHO LIGHTLY SIPS 


To crush the power of Might and Tyranny, 

To ransom peoples ’neath oppression bowed; 
They hint a Holy War on vaster scale,— 

Full half a world reconsecrate to guard its Holy 
Grail! 

“Men march, they say, a score of million strong, 
To feed th’ insatiate maw of ravening Mars; 

Nor count it loss to die to right the wrong, 

And set new constellations ’mong the stars: 

No more Death stalks his prey in stealth, but 
grim, 

In proud state, waits,—for lo! breast-bared, they 
come to him! 

“Hear now my plea. I know these souls will 
tread 

The Elysian Meads with heroes of the Past; 
Yet, august Gods, that these heroic dead 
Shall not have fought in vain, grant that, at last, 
From fields their dauntless blood so freely ran 
May spring a greater Golden Age, may burst— 
the Brotherhood of Man!” 

So Charon spake; for one long moment rolled— 
Reverberating through that vaulted place 
Like undissuadable winds across a wold— 

His echoed fervor. For one heart-throb’s space 
Full silence fell; my mind ached with suspense! 
For Charon’s quest (and mine!) what answer held 
Omnipotence? 

But all that splendid temple lay illumed 
With soul-pervading light,—suffused, serene; 
Till straight the judgment of the Great Gods 
boomed— 


AND OTHER POEMS 


37 


“Go, faithful Ferryman, and row thy barge be¬ 
tween 

The bournes of Life and Death in peace, for we 
Who plann’d these times have also plann’d their 
end,— Go, trust, and—see!” 

Then Charon and the Gods remoter grew, 
Drifting to far, dim distance on the sea 
Of that portentous Voice which through and 
through 

My brain resounded still,—sonorously 
Booming, as though to mark momentous hours; 
I ’woke—’twas Easter morn! The glad bells 
rocked a hundred towers! 


38 


WHO LIGHTLY SIPS 


BABETTE 

Somehow I cannot think of you 
As lost to me, Babette: 

You’ve only wandered down the path 
In search of mignonette,— 

Leaving me poring o’er a book 
Whose leaves are strangely wet! 

The book of strayed and empty years 
That held no glimpse of you,— 

I read, so sure that myrtled groves 
Will burst upon my view; 

Yet every hope-turned page reveals 
A sorry sprig of rue! 

But you’ll come,—in the doorway stand 
Against the sunset glow; 

Creep, as of old, within the arms 
That such grim hunger know,— 

And close my book, with welling eyes, 
Swearing it wasn’t so! 

You’ll laugh, and say “’Twas but a tale 
Come, hold me close,—forget! 

A kiss for every littlest bloom 
Will buy my mignonette!” 

Somehow, I cannot think of you 
As lost to me Babette! 


AND OTHER POEMS 


39 


FRANKENSTEIN 

Thank God, the mountains everlasting stand 
Unmoved, and sleepy valleys, as of old, 

Their misty sails of morning prayer unfold; 
For far and wide goes trampling o'er the land 
The Demon Harrower that our fathers plann'd, 
Not pausing to prevision how the mold 
Of ancient custom would be torn and rolled 
To flatness, uninspired beneath his hand. 

For this that they acclaimed Democracy 
Lifts not the many to the few's estate, 

But gives the many license to create 
Drab levels for the few to tread with them; 

To make a god of Mediocrity 
And crown a dung-hill with a diadem! 


40 


WHO LIGHTLY SIPS 


THE WATCHER 
(Suggested by Rodin’s ‘‘Thinker”) 

Lone on the peaks a Watcher sits, and broods 
On late frustrations: far beneath him lie 
Lands of fictitious peace,—vast multitudes 
Basking in fatuous ignorance of the Eye 
That darts its smould’ring, speculative flames 
From tall Manhattan’s towers to Peter’s dome,— 
The cumulative Greed whose lesser names 
Were Macedon, and Corsica, and Rome! 

And if he come in yellow, white, or black, 

’Tis one; no words that stabbing hand will stay,— 
Naught but united might will hurl him back 
Whose wolves strain at the leash, and toast 
“The Day!” 

O Peoples of the World, guard well your trust: 
World-conquest wields a sword that knows 
no rust! 


AND OTHER POEMS 


41 


MOUNTAINS OF ILLUSION 

The desire-begotten trails that climb the Moun¬ 
tains of Illusion 

Throng with lineal descendants of the Souls that 
blazed them first, 

Whose rapt faces are as banners flung from 
hopes as yet unvanquished, 

Or aghast at glimpsed analogies between the 
Best and Worst. 

Lo! Some are still aflame with unimaginable 
sunsets, 

Full crestward set, and avid for the hinted vales 
of Dream,— 

But others shuffle sadly down from heights 
ablaze behind them, 

Their haunted eyes with ghosts of unforgotten 
fires agleam. 

These innumerable, secret ways are fused and 
interwoven, 

Like frail filaments of Fancy in a mind at war 
with Facts: 

Underfoot are stones eroded, or encarnadined 
and glist’ning 

With the mutely crimson signets of unpublish¬ 
able pacts.: 

Some dripped, in splendid squandering, from 
eager feet, unheeded, 

And some from feet reluctantly relinquishing each 
drop;— 

There is blood of you and me upon the Moun¬ 
tains of Illusion, 

Though God alone knows why we climb, or 
pities when we stop! 


42 


WHO LIGHTLY SIPS 


CHIMNEY-POTS OF PARIS 

O chimney-pots of Paris, 

How sentry-like you stand 

On sudden crest and craggy height 
About that roofy land!. 

A land whose slatey palisades 
And dormered valleys glow 

With sunset tints that never gild 
The canyons far below. 

O chimney-pots of Paris, 

Exotic realm of dreams! 

Day-long your children wander 
Yon madly fevered streams; 

But at nightfall, climbing upward, 

Seek the mansards where they dwell, 

While your blue smoke, curling starward, 
Whispers “Rest ye,—all is well!” 

O chimney-pots of Paris, 

Though cast in homely mold, 

Great bards in song and story 
Your glories have extolled: 

It must be they first glimpsed you 
From attics where the arts 

Of bygone Mimi Pinsons 

Made Heaven in their hearts! 

Dear chimney-pots of Paris, 

You spell Romance to me! 

And ere youth’s panting race is run 
I yearn once more to see 


AND OTHER POEMS 


43 


Your friendly silhouettes against 
The evening oriflamme, 

And the sum of all your watch-towers 
Glorified in Notre Dame! 


44 


WHO LIGHTLY SIPS 


THE CHILD ETERNAL 

Thou art the Mecca of my heart’s desire, 

The Faithful all in me personified: 

Thy bosom is a gleaming Mosque,—its pride 
These palpitant twin Domes of snow and fire, 
A-tremble with the tumult of the Choir, 
Kiss-molded by the worshipper outside, 

Who doth to them each secret hope confide 
And with them every ravishment conspire! 

Dear love, should one who brings a closer claim 
With lisping worship creep upon thy breast, 
And were they bosom avidly caressed 
By tugging lips and little, paddling hands,— 
Remembering man is only man in name, 

Exile me not from out thy pleasant lands! 


AND OTHER POEMS 


45 


MADONNA OF THE ALLEY 

Across the drably uninspired back street 
On which my office windows look askance, 
Blithely, at her monotonous task, there sings 
A little mender of Oriental rugs, 

And, incidentally, of other things. 

And every morning, ere my toils begin, 

I look down at her through the alley's murk,— 
(For she is young, and healing to the eyes!) 
And she, a stolen second glancing up, 
Companionably smiles, good-morning-wise. 

That brave, gay, tender smiles pervades 
The working-day, and runs through all my hours, 
Just as her busy shuttle threads its way 
Through warp and woof, playing at hide-and-seek 
With her sweet, nimble fingers all the day. 

It gleams at me from figures dull and drear, 

It glorifies the most prosaic task; 

And spreads its elfin beauty o’er the drought 
Of bitter broodings, coaxing foolish smiles 
To twitch the corners of my solemn mouth. 

And thus, throughout my uneventful days, 

The healing shuttle of a young girl’s smile 
Darts here and there, and subtly quickens me 
To hope, and faith, and glamour of the things 
That go to make Youth’s guileless ecstasy! 


46 


WHO LIGHTLY SIPS 


As though this shabby rug that is my Self 
(Desire-worn and Passion-faded!) were 
Confided to her skilful minist’rings,— 
Emerging bright and clean and whole again, 
Mended by the little mender of rugs 
And other things! 


AND OTHER POEMS 


47 


PREDESTINED 

As a sea-bird wings thro’ the mist and rain 
To the crag and his mate’s warm side, 

A thousand leagues o’er the heaving main 
With never a voice to guide,— 

So I, thro’ the troubled years, to that nest 
Ordained when the world began,— 

O the gods never fashion’d a lovelier breast 
For the weary head of a man! 

As a wave is born on the sea’s dim verge 
And, mindless of keel and oar, 

Rolls landward, obeying some cosmic urge, 
Till it breaks in foam on the shore,— 

So I surge homeward from strange, far lands 
To break in joy at your feet, 

And lose myself in the pale gold sands 
Of your beauty, my own, my sweet! 

Two globules of moisture will be updrawn 
To separate clouds, and the twain 
In a sudden shower of some April dawn 
Will meet on your window-pane; 

Will meet, and mingle, and grow to one 
By decree of an ancient fate, 

So surely the goals of a world are won 
And mate draws unto mate. 

So we in the primeval slime lay curled, 
Predestined, each for each, 

And called to each other across the world 
Ere ever the dawn of speech! 


48 


WHO LIGHTLY SIPS 


By infinite travail, through infinite years, 
Through many an avatar,— 

And we yet may wing to invisible spheres, 
Each to a separate star! 

But now—this world,—the new-born year, 
This life, and Love’s new laughter; 

We two, content,—who hold no fear 
What fate may follow after: 

The chapter we read was inscribed by a Hand 
We can trust to write on and on 
To the ultimate, crowning sunset planned 
By the Wisdom that gave us dawn! 


AND OTHER POEMS 


49 


RUNNING OFF TO SEA 

The thought of You was first a brook 
Meandering through a meadow; 

It little recked what reeds it shook 
Or where its waters led, O! 

Before I knew, the roguish wight 
Had swelled into a river 

That rushes o’er me in its might, 

And sets my banks a-quiver! 

I’m carried seaward with the stream,— 
A sailor’s fate for me, dear! 

Since, rather late in life, ’twould seem 
I’m running off to sea, dear! 


50 


WHO LIGHTLY SIPS 


STABB’D BY BEAUTY . . 

O I am stabb’d by Beauty till every nerve 
Aches with sharp agony of thirst unquenched! 

Bright knives of hillock, hollow, and gracious 
curve, 

That turn in the wound, leaving my senses 
drenched 

With floods of feeling scarce to be endured! 
Time was when these same knives flashed in 
a sweet 

And swift caress,—a ravishment that cured 
World-weariness, and winged my lagging feet,— 

But now they kill—and yet, I do not die! 

O would that ’neath those unforgetting skies, 

Awed in the Cyprian sedges I might lie. 
Watching the Mother of all Beauty rise: 

Then plunge, swim her-ward, and with exultant 
hymns, 

Drown in the spreading splendor of her limbs! 


AND OTHER POEMS 


51 


SONG OF THE OUTBOUND 

O the windy track again, spinnakers a-crack again, 
’Cross the world an’ back again,— 

Up an’ down the seas! 

Ain’t no use o’ settin’ home an’ wishin’ y’ could 
go a-roamin’,— 

Better watch the bubbles foamin’, 

(Dreamin’ o’ the trees!) 

Home-ties an’ familiar faces make y’ wish for 
other places,— 

Make y’ dream of other faces 
Waitin’ by the jetty-wall; 

When y’r wishful to be leavin’, (ache to see the 
sky-line heavin’!) 

Little good is all their grievin’ 

When y’ hear the Wander Call! 

Little they know of the passion, every nerve an’ 
fiber lashin’, 

For to feel the salt spray splashin’,— 

For to be just what you are! 

What can they know of the yearnin’ (like a fiery 
fever burnin’!) 

For some stranger-woman turnin’ 

’Round to smile in the bazaar! 

It’s a wide ol’ world y’r born in, an* there’s 
little time twixt mornin’ 

And old-age’s sudden warnin’ 

Which nothin’ can forestall; 


52 


WHO LIGHTLY SIPS 

Sure y’ don’t live very of’en, an’ no kind o’ 
craft’s a coffin 

To up anchor an’ sail off in, 

For to see it all. 

O the settin’ sun’s behind us! And to east’ard, 
(to remind us 

Of where a month may find us) 

Shadows creep on sea and sky, ^ # f 

Like ghosty palm-trees swayin’, an’ its me to 
who they’re sayin’, 

“Come, O come! Don’t be delayin’!” 

And I’m goin’, so—Goodbye! 


AND OTHER POEMS 


53 


RIBBAGE 

The life of man is but a phrase; 

He plans the punctuation, 

But finds instead, to his amaze, 

A mild interrogation! 

His proper study is himself,— 

But, being sadly human, 

He, leaving that book on the shelf, 
Sits poring over “Woman,”— 

The most elusive, inexact, 

And disconcerting science,— 

It contradicts the Solemn Fact 
And hurls at Truth defiance! 

And yet, he reads with all his eyes, 

As though, could he but plumb it, 
‘T would fit him for the Paradise 
Envisioned by Mahommet: 

Though I suspect the Houri band 
Provided by the Prophet 
Were simpler far to understand, 

Or Paradise were Tophet! 


54 


WHO LIGHTLY SIPS 


THE SECOND-HAND BOOK BIN 

Threading an alley choked with wintry grime, 

I met an army at “attention,”—ranks 
On serried ranks of motlied mountebanks 
Scarr’d from campaigning with Dictator Time: 
Exiled at whim from out the kindlier clime 
Of blazing hearths, without so much as thanks, 
They stood;—above each veteran phalanx 
Flaunted a shameful banner—“Choice, one dime”! 

No mercenaries these, that on review 
In tattered uniforms defied the cold; 

But heroes all, who oft, for me and you, 

Fought the good fight, all debonair and bold 
‘Gainst Melancholy, Doubt, and dull Despair; 

I stopped, and gave my best salute, I swear! 


AND OTHER POEMS 


55 


ADVICE TO A LOVER 

Nature’s an exacting lover; 

To a faint, half-hearted passion 

Some prim beauties she’ll uncover 
In a desultory fashion. 

If you shun her secret places,— 

Deem her methods rather mussy, 

If you shrink from hot embraces,— 
Over-finical and fussy, 

Small hope yours of close communing,— 
Hearing more than half her story; 

Little chance have you of swooning 
To her cosmic, amorous glory! 

She demands a lusty suitor, 

And on them has ever lavished 

Rarest bliss who stark salute her, 
Ravishing and being ravished! 

Leave all timid reservations, 

Decorous, over-nice, behind you: 

Seek in her a bride’s elations, 

Let her as a bridegroom find you. 

Half-immersed upon their edges 
Clasp her wanton little rivers, 

Sprawl full-length among the sedges 
Answering their ecstatic shivers! 


56 


WHO LIGHTLY SIPS 


Press your bosom, bare and heaving, 

To the tree-bole,—match its sighing; 

Partly yours will be its leaving, 

Some of you the fructifying. 

Lie where, pinkly-tipped with clover, 
Sunny hill-top breasts are squandering 

Milk of life, slow running over 
Into rillets, valeward wandering. 

Match her every sigh and trembling,— 
Curve your body to her hollows; 

Waste no time in shy dissembling,— 
Give! And take what surely follows! 

Nature’s an exacting lover: 

Would you know as mistress, Summer, 

Let the maiden Spring discover 
All you are, hold nothing from her! 


AND OTHER POEMS 


57 


PRONE 

Brown sedges tread their stately sarabands 
Against the sun, along blown brows of dunes; 
Gay pirouetting waves, ’neath flung festoons 
Of spumy lace, beckon with soft, wet hands 
Across the level silence of the sands, 

Begging them join their jubilant platoons: 
The dull sand listens for a many moons, 

And why they do not never understands. 

O body, that can only sway and yearn 
In poignant wistfulness to be with those 
Who beckon where the salt spray veering blows! 
O dreams, that dance away across the sea! 

O heart, that must forever faint and burn 
Athirst between the rooted and the free! 


58 


WHO LIGHTLY SIPS 


IN DAYS OF YORE . . 

In days of yore they were discreet, 

Those modest, shy, retiring feet; 

Dainty boots that showed, at best, 

Their soles,—the uppers were but guessed 
Beneath their crinoline retreat! 

With grace and coquetry replete, 

Like maiden secrets, half-confessed, 

They quickened many a beau’s heartbeat 
In days of yore. 

But now, they boldly throng the street, 

And modesty seems obsolete,— 

The “uppers” give the eye no rest! 

To glimpse the souls,—ah, that’s the quest! 
To think this surfeit was a treat 
In days of yore! 


AND OTHER POEMS 


59 


O CROWDED CARAVANSERAI 

O crowded caravanserai, my Heart, 

Wherein have taken refuge and grown old 
So many hopes,—dost fear to set apart 

One place of honor more? Must thou withhold 
Thy gesture of glad welcoming at last? 

For see, I bring thee now a wanderer 
Before the time of benisons is past,— 

Exult! Forget! Fling wide thy gates to her! 
Shelter this final dream, nor heed the wind, 

The skeptic wind that mutters in thine eaves,— 
J Tis but an old, old doubt that haunts the mind, 
But thou art ever young, and Youth believes: 
Make room, before the remnant of me die— 

One more, O crowded caravanserai! 


60 


WHO LIGHTLY SIPS 


MORITURI SALUTAMUS 

Way there! Make way, O ye virtuous! 

Way for the Heirs of the Earth! 

She, the solicitous Mother, 

Bequeathes us her ultimate mirth! 

We (and we know!) shall inherit 
Gifts that are types of our worth! 

Scums of life’s ebb-tide she leaves us,— 
Ashes of impotent powers! 

Sunlight so old it is rotten! 

Dust of decayed Passion Flowers! 
Impulses, footless and sterile,— 

All these, and more, will be ours! 

For she offered the loan of her fairest, 
And we sneered at her generous terms! 
We wanted the world for our plaything, 
From whole solar systems to germs: 

We couldn’t be bothered with reason 

Who were born to be fodder for worms! 

Way for the High Priests of Sorrows! 

Pilgrims of Passion are we! 

Wan lords of still-born Tomorrows,— 

Our throne the gaunt single-branch Tree! 
Way! Let us pay for our pleasures 
The Price that we wouldn’t foresee! 


AND OTHER POEMS 


61 


PORTRAIT 

The many saw less in him than the few, 

Who saw but what imbues a fleeting glance 
With consciousness of insignificance: 

Some hinted evil, some pale good they knew, 
Too vague to give them pause, nor was a clue 
Found in his voice’s cautious utterance: 
Behind that unarresting face Romance 
Writhed unsuspected,—save by one or two. 

But some of us to whom his doors were wide, 
Saw one who stood undaunted, while a flood 
From fettered feet to hands in honor tied 

Rolled grimly upward, yet whose uplifted eyes 
Saw only Beauty, leaning from the skies, 
And blessed her for the tumults in his blood! 


62 


WHO LIGHTLY SIPS 


THE ROOM 

How perfect all would be, this winter night, 
Were you but here beside me, fragrant-warm! 
Where chuckling logs uptoss their rosy light 
Against the ceiling, careless of the storm 
That rages ’round this tranquil haven, where 
We two so oft sat curled in this big chair. 

The room is just as you would have it, dear,— 
A garrulous, companionable fire, 

Our favorite books conveniently near 
This memory-laden chair—Oh, Heart’s Desire, 
All that we loved is here,—it lacks but you 
To consummate the wonted rendezvous! 

Well know I how ’twould be: your sweet, rapt 
gaze 

Fixed on the fire, and all the vivid spell 
Of that rare face illumined in its blaze; 

Quick lips, alive with all they had to tell,— 

So you would speak, until, in swift surmise 
You’d feel, and turn to meet, my hungry eyes! 

And then, what golden glory in a glance! 

Your eyes, but late with anecdote agleam, 
Turned suddenly upon my countenance 
In moving, melting look of love supreme! 

Oh, darling! Why not in these arms, instead 
Of lying there so still and white and—dead! 


AND OTHER POEMS 


63 


RENASCENT 

Sand-cradled on the Cytherean shore, 

Far, far away and long ago, for me 
An awe-struck shell observed The Mystery, 
And down the years a visual echo bore 
Of gleaming breasts the very gods adore, 

Pomegranate mouth, and wave-wet hair blown 
free, 

Slim, gracious hands, and blinding limbs the sea 
Still clung to, as it could not give them o’er! 

Only in some such labyrinthine womb 

Could you, my Sweet, have come to me, soft- 
curled,— 

The quintessential wonder of the world 
In miniature,—caressed by ghostly breeze, 

And lulled across the ages by mimic boom 
And murmurous dreams of reminiscent seas! 


64 


WHO LIGHTLY SIPS 


LAME THEOBALD 

Stalwart, bronzed Bartholomew, 

Strong the stone to smite and hew, 

Chaff’d his lame friend Theobald,— 
(Longtime with gentler Muse enthralled)— 

Boasting—“With muscles like the stone 
Beneath my mallet, I am known 

Wherever Kings have gold to give 
For matchless forms that all but live: 

My chisel brings to earth again 
Brave shapes of Goddesses and men, 

As on the granite’s deathless heart 
I grave the evidence of my art! 

Fame’s not for thee! On some far day 
When thy last sonnet’s long been prey 

Of book-worm, mildew, mold, and rot,— 
When e’en they name is world-forgot, 

A hundred years thou’lt see endow 
With vaster length and breadth than now 

My fame,—immune to Time or shock, 
Anchored in everlasting rock!” 


AND OTHER POEMS 


65 


To which lame Theobald rejoin’d: 
“’Tis true thy fame is marble-groined; 

Yet on a day a thousand years 
Beyond the one of thy kind fears, 

When thy great statues, at the last, 
Have, crumbling, into fine sand passed, 

Two lovers, on the dust thereof, 

Will sit and talk—of Life and Love,— 

Will sing my Songs,—fall silent,—kiss! 
Wouldst know a fairer fame than this?” 

To which, his face o’ercast with rue, 

No answer found Bartholomew. 


66 


WHO LIGHTLY SIPS 


LAY MY LUTE UPON THE FIRE 

Lay my lute upon the fire,— 

I am sickened 

Of the hopes that one time quickened 
My desire! 

I am wearied of the whirring 
Wings of visions, 

Bruised with beating ’gainst decisions 
Oft recurring. 

Down the corridors of Fancy 
Grope unsentient 

Dreams, that vainly call their ancient 
Necromancy. 

And my thoughts are worn and bleeding 
From pursuing 

Distant gleams, and pathways wooing, 
Nowhere leading! 

On the altar-fire lay it, 

Mute, yet deathless: 

Till you come, belov’d, and breathless, 
Bid me play it! 


AND OTHER POEMS 


67 


FEAR 

Stretched in the sedge that blows about the brows 
Of placid cliffs, I watch the distant, slow, 
Mysterious life that weaves its web below 
Within the harbor. Blundering, sheep-like scows 
Follow their tugs,—blue fields the fisher ploughs, 
And moonstruck tides like hopeful suitors flow 
So credulously in, then seaward go, 
Whimpering their grief against unheeding prows. 

The gallant, lordly ships at anchor swing 
Asleep, until some hinted challenge blown 
From hidden shores makes fretful timbers groan 
And mocks furled sails. The summons taunts my 
youth! 

Dared I but launch my dreams against the sting 
And salt of Disillusionment and Truth! 


68 


WHO LIGHTLY SIPS 


IF I MUST LIVE WITH MEN . . . 

If I must live with men, then let it be 
Close to the heart’s heart of some mighty town, 
Where I may sense the deep, tumultuous pulse 
That mutters rumors of the world’s dim fringe. 
High-perched in some sheer canyon would I 
dwell, 

Lulled by the manifold, incessant roar 
And rumble of the surging stream below,— 

As my cliff-clinging forebears dared to climb 
And nest high up the towering palisades 
Whose granite knees denied the torrent’s might! 
But me-ward, lacking those grand harmonies, 
Must rise and swell the Babel-voice of life,— 
The din and clatter of vast traffic, bound 
From mart to mart, from cause to super-cause; 
The speech significant of sirens, bells, 

Of horns and whistles, warnings and alarms; 
That thrilling surmise, when the newsboy host, 
Armed with an extra, sticky from the press, 

All leathern-lunged, descends upon the street, 
Retailing rumbles of some hinted war, 
Exploiting murders, suicides, and trials, 

And out-Chaosing Chaos with shrill cries! 

Then myriad lights, intrigue-perfumed cafes, 
And revelers’ songs! The mystic, pregnant hush 
That just precedes sonorous, solemn chimes 
Marking full midnight from deep-echoing towers! 
All these, and twice ten thousand more as well, 
Must be my price, among mad men to dwell! 


AND OTHER POEMS 


69 


LIPPAGE 

When man on yielding lips imprints 
(Those lips that oft malign us!) 

An artless kiss, experience hints 
He’d best be writing “finis.” 

But periods are round, it’s true, 

And like a ball keep rollin’ 

Until they break themselves in two, 
Which makes, of course, a colon: 

One can’t stop thus: in secret fears 
Man speeds the fatal drama; 

One dot rubs out, the other smears, 

And—presto—there’s a comma, 

Which indicates one isn’t through,— 
He hastens to erase it; 

One rub, a dash appears to view, 

The next, a blank! Hie jacet! 

Blanks must be filled: he prints a short, 
Stern mark of exclamation! 

Which her still smiling lips contort 
To mild interrogation. 

To questions man an answer owes, 

’Tis quite ill-bred to slight ’em; 

And so, da capo, on it goes 
Ad lib., ad infinitum! 


WHO LIGHTLY SIPS 

The moral is that Beauty’s lip 
Is Satan’s wine-cup, surely, 

Since man becomes, from his first sip, 
A drunkard, prematurely! 


AND OTHER POEMS 


71 


TAPS 

Eddie, an’ Jim, an’ Squint-eye Joe, 

Barefooted, freckled, and tanned, 

Lay on their backs, with their moth-eaten pup, 
In the warm September glow; 

An’ told what they’d be, when they growed up,— 
Eddie, an’ Jim, an’ Joe. 

Eddie, an’ Jim, an’ Squint-eye Joe 
Were bound to be richer ’n kings: 

Eddie’s ambition a judge’s wig, 

Jim would explorin’ go, 

An’ Joe’d be a actor, when he got big,— 

Eddie, an’ Jim, an’ Joe. 

Eddie, and Jim, and Squint-eye Joe 
Lay on the shell-torn earth! 

Jim dragged Joe to a crater’s brink 
Where Eddie, dying below, 

Beckoned, and gave him his last drop to drink,— 
Eddie, and Jim, and Joe! 

Eddie, and Jim, and Squint-eye Joe 
Lie on their backs—asleep. 

Their Great Adventure has come and passed, 
And crosses three, in a row, 

Tell that they’re richer than kings, at last,— 
Eddie, and Jim, and Joe. 


72 


WHO LIGHTLY SIPS 


THE TRAMP 

The noonday swooned upon the prostrate road 
That panted in the dust of her desire; 

The tramp trudged on beneath red-kerchiefed 
load 

To where an opening in the powdered brier 
Showed gracious lawns, a score of arching elms, 
And wide, old-fashioned house with vines 

o’erlaid: . 

He turned, as one whom memory overwhelms, 
Slunk to the porch, and in the lilacs* shade 
Stood raptly listening. Thro* the open door 
Stole the cool scent of matting,—voices humm’d 
In murmurous content,—and o’er and o’er 
A child her music lesson idly drumm’d; 
Somewhere a hoarse and ancient clock boomed 
“One,”— 

He sobbed, and stumbled on beneath the sun! 


AND OTHER POEMS 


73 


ROUNDED HILL-TOPS 

A child should be allowed to lie 
On rounded hill-tops, near the sky: 

Where clear, life-giving rills well over 
From Nature’s breasts, pink-tipped with clover: 

And he should talk with them while young, 
Each matching tongue with babbling tongue; 

Since, if his boyhood with them flows 
As each to stronger current grows, 

He’ll trust the rill when it’s a stream,— 

Float fearless in its arms, and dream: 

When it’s a river, he a man, 

Fast friends they’ll be as they began; 

Then, if he understands it still 
And trusts it, as when on the hill, 

He’ll shrink not from the last, great tide 
That bears him to the ocean wide, 

And unafraid of roar and boom, 

Be wafted back to Nature’s womb; 

From her green breasts in turn to rise 
On rounded hill-tops, near the skies! 


74 


WHO LIGHTLY SIPS 


FROM THE BATTERY 


Up from the sea’s mysterious anteroom,— 

Should’ring cold fogs that shroud the lower 
bay, 

Loom stately ships that havenward feel their 


way, 

Their towering prows 
spume. 


all frosted white with 


Each regal phantom, hesitant, a-wing, 

In turn is pounced upon by rude convoys 
Of stunted, snorting tugs, whose smoke and 
noise 

Mar the chaste grandeur of her harboring. 


They charge, with bows all matted hemp, like 
manes, 

And hawes-hole eyes agleam ’neath shaggy 
hair, 

Like thundering bison harrying to its lair 
Some prehistoric monster of the plains! 

Churning small maelstroms of pale emerald foam, 
They butt, and fret, and bully her upstream 
With vast officiousness, and to the scream 
Of raucous whistles warp her surely home. 


So is it when those mystic vapors vague 

That shroud the poet’s soul are crystallized 
Into blest shapes of Beauty,—scarce-surmised, 
Of restless power to urge, torment, and plague. 


AND OTHER POEMS 


75 


Oft might these Ships of Fancy run aground 
On rocks of Grim Reality, or hated shoal 
Of Bitter Truth,—go down with every soul, 
But for the watchful tugs that hover ’round: 

The oft-unwelcome tugs of Common Sense,— 
Though smirching with chagrin our nacreous 
dreams, 

Still reconcile what is with what but seems, 
And guide us toward the better recompense. 


7,6 


WHO LIGHTLY SIPS 


MONUMENTS 

Come with me into any woodland glade 
And I will show you there a monument: 

No towering shaft of granite, overlaid 

With chiseled art and rich embellishment,— 
No graven legend to immortalize 

The brave, above their tired, crumbling bones,— 
But such a superscription as the eyes 

Of heart alone may read in blackened stones, 
Charred sticks, and ashes of a vanished fire: 

“Here, for an hour, a footsore wanderer 
Unslung the heavy pack of Soul’s Desire, 

Resting him from the search for Things that 
were; 

And world-forgetting, by the world forgot, 
Raised wordless thanks that consecrate the 
spot!” 


AND OTHER POEMS 


77 


THE ULTIMATE TRYST 

Once more this breathless rendezvous 
I keep,—sense-fettered feet 

Poised on the wild, sob-shaken shore 
Where Pain and Pleasure meet; 

And on my bared and bloody brow 
Strange winds exulting beat! 

Oft, oft I’ve met them here before,— 

Those friends, whose speech is one: 

Heard Pleasure’s long-drawn, quav’ring sigh 
In Pain’s caught breath undone; 

Full oft have we such converse held, 

And parted, with the sun. 

Full many a night they’ve held me close 
And had their will of me! 

I’ve thought my swooning universe 
Too small to hold us three, 

And yet, it has,—until tonight, 

But this our last will be! 


The heart’s mad, throbbing threnody 
My vision hindereth,— 

Is this, at last, your kiss, old friends? 

This chill your perfumed breath? 
Ah, God! I asked but Joy and Pain, 
But Thou hast sent me—Death! 


78 


WHO LIGHTLY SIPS 


SONG OF THE WASTERS 

We have bent to the sway of the palpitant Clay, 
We have listened to palpable lies; 

The rose-berimm’d highway has been our pet 
byway 

And Hell but a joke in disguise; 

But now, as we crouch by Life's cold hearth, in 
vain 

We wonder how none of us guessed 
That these flames that consume us breed ashes, 
and doom us 

To writhe in eternal unrest! 

To the uttermost seas on each casual breeze 
We have drifted as Destiny willed: 

We have warbled Love’s psalters at various altars, 
And kissed where we’d better have killed! 
Broadcast have we scattered the strength of our 
youth 

To pamper each vagrant desire,— 

Until pleasures and pains are so mixed in our 
veins 

That Thought is a blistering fire! 

We seek in our breast the old, magical zest 
Of emotions that fail to emote! 

Our souls are besotted, our bodies berotted, 
The clutch of Decay’s at our throat! 

We grovel, and pray for just one more last chance, 
Yet know, in our hearts, ’twould be vain! 

For we fools that are fated with Death to be 
mated 

Would do it all over again! 


AND OTHER POEMS 


79 


EVERGREEN 

Green, hopeful, and sweet-scented, in a still, 
Sad world of phantom life and wrinkled 
wraith,— 

Such is the hemlock on the snow-cloaked hill 
Among stark trees that lack its sturdy faith, 

And such the heart your bright old eyes reveal, 
Dear ancient lady, where, behind the pane, 

You watch life passing with unlessened zeal, 
And smile on those who do not smile again. 

But I have seen a youthful face that set 
A mournful album’s page with light aflame! 

Yours, when you waited (and are waiting yet) 
The bridegroom recreant who never came: 

As guards that dingy back your beauty’s sheen, 
So you, your heart,—he’ll find it evergreen. 


80 


WHO LIGHTLY SIPS 


THE “DYIN’ ” STRAIN 

There’s a glorious strain like a golden vein 
That runs through Adam’s breed, 

And here and there crops out to square 
Its debt, with some deathless deed; 

It’s the strain of the men who can’t say “When!” 

Whose reckoning seems awry,— 

The lads that never could learn to live 
But are teaching the world to die! 


So here’s a toast to the valiant host 
Of those who “didn’t belong, 

For at last they’re quits, those brave misfits, 
Odd sizes that seemed all wrong; 

They were born with a list, an illogical twist, 
And never could quite see “Why,”— 

But they’re right with the ultimate scheme of 
things 

For they’re teaching us how to die! 

And as in their praise this glass I raise, 

In its depths a vision lies 
Of the mothers who gave them a heritage brave, 
(Whom they couldn’t teach to be wise!) 

Who, for Love’s dear sake, crossed the Bloody 
Lake 

And shattered the Gates of Pain, 

And gallantly gave to the world the gift 
Of the marvelous “dyin”’ strain! 


AND OTHER POEMS 81 

Wherever some hope forlorn begged alms, 

The dust their tribute yields, 

For some lie bleached ’neath Cuba’s palms, 
And some in Flemish fields; 

And in truth, God wot, there’s never a spot 
Beneath the compassionate sky 
But is drenched with the dew of that dauntless 
crew 

That has showed us the way to die! 


82 


WHO LIGHTLY SIPS 


VOICES 

On the breast of the Night, in the vale of her 
ebony bosom, 

I lie, as a lover, foreknowing the daggers ot 

morning,— . . . 

As a lover may lie, in complaisance divining re¬ 
proaches 

Stilled by his kisses. 

The impalpable Night, to my guilty embrace un- 
responsive, . 

Speaks not comforting word nor with fingers 
caresses my eyelids, 

But mutely, with shivering shake of black tresses, 
unleashes 

Those that torment me! 

Formless and nameless, but never, in God’s pity, 
tongueless, 

They rest not, nor leave me, but ceaselessly 
whirring and wheeling 

On wings of white fury come flutt’ring and beat¬ 
ing at windows 

Fastened forever! 

They speak of the Past and their speech makes 
a myth of the Future; 

They moan of the Future, but Yesterday’s 
memory denies it! 

Their whispering voices swell into reverberant 
thunder, 

Daring me name it! 


AND OTHER POEMS 


83 


“Name but one day, or an hour, when the You 
of your dreaming 

Cast out the You we are haunting, yielding the 
vision 

Whole-hearted allegiance,—but name it and we, 
swiftly vanishing, 

Grant you Tomorrow!” 

I seek in my brain, I drag through its corridors 
winding, 

I cry to the Past, but no Hour wings back to 
redeem me: 

The Voices go on through the night, and the 
wings keep on beating, 

Beating in darkness! 


84 


WHO LIGHTLY SIPS 


DRIFTWOOD FLAMES 

Love, there will come a day an unseen hand 
Will turn the page of Memory, and bring 
Dim recollections of a dimmer land; 

Some idle hour, and you remembering 
A long-forgotten name, you know not why,— 
Briefly amazed to find you could recall 
Its unromantic sound. And should you sigh, 
More for the past than it—will that be all? 
Will it be no more to you than a name,— 

A bit of driftwood cast upon the shore 
Of reminiscence? Or to sudden flame 

Will burst some ember in your bosom’s core, 
And will you close your eyes, and know again 
That distant kiss and all the ancient pain? 


AND OTHER POEMS 


85 


SLUMBER SONG 

O scimitar Moon in the morning skies, 

O Sword that scatters the stars, 

Stand guard o’er the white little bed where lies 
My little white love, asleep,— 

My blossom that’s folded deep 
In a dream set adrift from Mars: 

O scimitar Moon in the morning skies, 

O Sword that scatters the stars! 

O crescent Moon on the brows of Day, 

O Cradle that rocks in the sky, 

Swing low, swing low, for she’s tired with play! 
Tho’ your ends, like Love’s, I ween 
May be sharp, there’s a couch between 
Softly swung, where my love may lie: 

O crescent Moon on the brows of Day, 

O Cradle that rocks in the sky! 

O silvery Sickle that garners Dawn, 

O Moon that will melt into day, 

Come down, come down, when your blade’s 
withdrawn 

From heavens afire with sun, 

And bring my sweet, slumbering one 
A harvest of sheaves from the Milky Way: 

O silvery Sickle that garners Dawn, 

O Moon that will melt into day! 

O slim, golden Galley with star-dust pearled, 

O Galley at anchor on high, 

Sail down to the body so tenderly furled 


86 


WHO LIGHTLY SIPS 


And carry her spirit afar 
To shores where the sugar-plums are,— 
But bring her back safe to my arms, lest I die 
O slim, golden Galley with star-dust pearled, 

O Galley at anchor on high! 


AND OTHER POEMS 


87 


INDIAN SUMMER 

Over the drowsing hedgerows and the haws, 

A gold and purple spell is folded low 
In softly-booming silences, as though 
The Summer’s loveliness makes tremulous pause 
For one long look into our eyes, and draws 
A deeply-murmurous sigh that she must go: 
Yet her wan, misted gaze is all aglow 
With hints of what will come when Winter thaws! 

An early autumn shivers through my veins; 

Its coronal of brave vermilions 
Flames on my heart,—a hint of burnished 
bronze 

To come, and then dull, rusty browns to bend 
In sorrow over Love’s bright, brief domains: 
Can this be all? Is this, so soon, the end? 


CONTEMPORARY POETS 

Numbered in Order of Issue 

(1) Windows of Gold, E. Leibfreed.$1.50 

(2) Trail O’Spring, E. M. Konecky. 1.25 

(3) Divine Fire, E. M. Watson. 1.00 

(4) Kingdom Beautiful, E. M. Watson. 1.00 

(5) Songs for Men, J. S. Montgomery. 1.00 

(6) Autumn Afternoon, R. C. G. Clark. 1.00 

(7) A Chinese Seal, M. P. Cain. 1.00 

(8) Bamboo Curtains, A. H. Newbold. 1.00 

(9) First Lyrics, A. Hodges. 1.00 

(10) Sunset Songs and Thistle Themes, W. Howell. 1.00 

(11) Flames of Stars, E. M. Watson. 1.00 

(12) Who Lightly Sips, J. T. Troth. 1.00 

(13) Open Doors, L. O. Mathis. 1.00 

(14) The Iron String, A. W. Draves. 1.00 


Post free if three or more are ordered 

























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